Compressed Hours

An Organizational Guide to Compressed Hours

Compressed working hours have quickly become an incredibly popular topic in the UK. Given the wave of “Great Layoffs” and silent layoffs, companies are having difficulty retaining their employees and keeping them employed.

Against this background, compressed working hours could be the solution. Let’s discuss what compressed working hours mean and how to implement them effectively…

What are compressed working hours?

Compressed working hours are a form of flexible work organization. It means workers will shorten their 40-hour week from the traditional five days to fewer days. With a compressed working time arrangement, people usually work four days a week.

There are various ways to compress working time:

• Employees can decide to work two hours more from Monday to Thursday and then take every Friday off. This is commonly referred to as 4/10 working hours (four days for 10 hours).
• Employees can decide to work an extra 30-60 minutes on four days and then take half off on the fifth day. Most workers prefer to do this Monday through Thursday and then take a half day off on Friday.

Do compressed working hours make sense?

To best answer this question, we need to look at it from two different perspectives: from the employee’s perspective and from the employer’s perspective…

1.Employer page

From an employer’s perspective, compressed working hours can be very useful if used in the right way. Compressed working hours can really help employers retain their employees and provide them with better wellbeing.

When employees are taken care of, they are more productive and effective, take fewer sick days and stay with the company longer.

All of these are important benefits for the employer.

However, if implemented poorly, the reduction in working hours can be quite problematic. If a key employee who is involved in almost all of the company’s projects takes a day off every week, there may be a shortage.

Additionally, there are tasks such as customer service that require employees to be ready to answer calls, so employers need to be careful when implementing compressed work hours.

The final point to consider is time tracking. Employers must track their employees’ work hours efficiently if they want compressed work hours to be successful.

2.The employee side

From the employee’s perspective, compressing working hours can have numerous advantages, such as: an additional weekend day (free Friday), more free time and the opportunity to run a side business or further training.

However, there are also some issues that workers may face when working a compressed work schedule:

• Managing a 10-hour day can be quite problematic for many employees. They may need to figure out how to use their energy effectively for such a long work day.
• To get more work done in fewer days, workers need to figure out how to be more productive and get everything done that needs to be done so that projects don’t stall when they’re away.

What is a compressed work plan?

A compressed work schedule is a way for the employee to perform their 40-hour work in a flexible manner so that they can enjoy certain benefits. One way to implement the compressed work schedule can also be to introduce a 9-day week.

How do you calculate compressed working hours?

With the compressed working time regulation, employees still have to work 40 hours per week. They only determine how many hours they work per day (as we saw in the examples above).

With compressed working hours, you have to take care of vacation entitlement. An employee who works compressed hours calculates their annual leave in hours rather than days.

If your employees’ working days fall on a public holiday, they will not have one day deducted from their annual leave, but the number of hours they would have worked on that day.

For example, if the holiday falls on a Monday and the employee with compressed working hours works 10 hours on Monday, then 10 hours will be deducted instead of a regular (eight-hour) day.

Should your company enter into contracts for compressed working hours?

Compressed work schedules provide a lot of flexibility for workers, and employers get more productive employees who are less likely to burn out. So compressed working hours offer many benefits to both employees and employers, but they need to be implemented correctly if everyone involved is to benefit.

Are compressed working hours the future of work?

Compressed working hours could be the future of work. But it will really depend on how well companies can organize themselves to track all the necessary elements to make it work. One of the biggest problems is the ability to track time effectively.

Most companies struggle with this when introducing compressed working hours, but when you use IceHrm’s attendance tracking software, you can record time accurately and in a legally compliant manner.